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Actually first on the block should be foreign aid. Then I would agree with cutting defense as well as any and every other program out there with NO exceptions.

Better yet. Cut farmers'subsidies. Then foreign farmers won't have to compete with artificially cheap USA/EU food (even in their local markets). Then foreign help will be not so necessary and you probably can cut it, too. And probably there will be less for bases everywhere and you can cut Defense spending!!.

As good as it feels to hate farm subsidies, they do serve a halfway useful purpose -- they basically eliminate famine and domestic shortage in exchange for higher total costs the other 95% of the time. Seriously... when's the last time you *ever* heard the word "famine" used in the context of "United States" or "Post-WWII non-Soviet-Bloc Europe"? If farmers operated purely without subsidy in a profit-maximizing way, they'd simply risk a bad food-free year every 10-20 years in exchange for.73% higher profits the next quarter. If one or two farmers did it, nobody would notice. If the American Agribusiness Industry acted like California's power-generation and transmission industry, we'd have a domestic crisis every time locusts descended upon Arkansas or Kansas (or at least poorer countries would, because the US would buy up most of their food).

Subsidizing dead industries is a bad thing, but there's a lot to be said for year-to-year stability as well. Would anybody who's sane *really* choose to save 1.9% per year in the long (25+ year horizon) run on groceries if it meant that prices at the store could soar overnight without warning, even if it meant that next year the same goods might be selling for pennies on the dollar? People have better things to do than spend their days researching prices and plan their purchase strategies for things they use daily at spot-market prices.

The reason for subsidies is simple -- it encourages farmers to plant enough to guarantee abundance under nearly any likely scenario, without leaving them trying to sell those same crops during a "good" year for less than they would have made by simply investing the season's crop capital in 6-month CDs and going on vacation somewhere. Gratuitous waste sucks, but shortage & famine is much, much worse.

Foreign aid is a tiny sneeze compared to military spending when you factor in pensions. Cutting military spending now is the key to cutting pension spending later, provided the cost cutting is accompanied by force reduction and not just compromising quality.

A lot of our foreign aid is actually homeland security driven, and is something promoted and voted for more by the conservative side of the congress. Take the whole area around Columbia, for example. The DEA provides drug interdiction helicopters to destroy Cocaine crops. This gives Columbia whole squadrons of assault helicopters, and the people who fly them become some of Columbia's best trained and 'well-bloodied' troops from actual under fire experience. T

Asked to estimate how much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid the median estimate is 25 percent. Asked how much they thought would be an "appropriate" percentage the median response is 10 percent.

In fact just 1 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid.

In terms of percent GDP, the U.S. is already among the more miserly of the developed nations. And don't forget, giving foreign aid is not done simply for humanitarian feel-good reasons. It is often done to secure political and military co-operation from third world nations.

Foreign aid is a tiny percentage of the budget, less than 1%. But it gives us leverage over the beneficiary countries, and helps them to promote our interests in their region. We don't give out foreign aid because we are sweethearts; we get something out of the deal.

Which is why I for one will ensure that I always have my towel handy. Seriously, however, while I can see a value in turning to the field of science fiction for new ideas, it would be much more cost efficient and effective to harvest those ideas from current professional science fiction practitioners than do-it-yourself. Just go to Amazon and buy their books, NASA, that's what DARPA does. Good gravy.

That was my first thought too, then I thought WTF could we do to stop them? Seriously who knows what technology they'd have, could be nearly invincible like independence day or die from a simple virus like War of the Worlds. And we can't even figure out how to stop using our US Govt credit card, if aliens do come to destroy us it's probably because they were tired us hearing us ask for a loan.

If they've been travelling around the place, they'll have worked out infection vectors long ago, and most likely be perfectly at home wiping out anything that would cause undue harm to their physiology.With you on the "What could we do" part.. Read Greg Bear's "Forge of God" for a pretty good view of what an encounter would be like.

Anyone who has mastered FTL travel will be impossible to stop. They could bounce around us whenever we got close enough to engage.

If they've mastered accelerating physical objects to even a significant fraction of c, then they could wipe us out before we even know about them just by slamming an object (any object) into any point on the earth.

So preparing for a future hostile encounter with aliens where they don't care about our resources or ourselves is pointless. The fight will be over before we've realized it's begun.

What do you think our great*n-grand-children will do when they live on an overpopulated planet and find one with just a handful of natives?
I don't know that our species is smart enough for space travel....and we do not appear to be getting smarter. It is more likely that we are invaded because other planets are sick of watching our reality TV broadcasts.

We have the Greenpeace idiots, which seem to care more about the planet than our species and individuals.

Depends on how strongly those natives affirm the concept of property rights. For example, nations of people like India, China, and Japan, which strongly affirmed property rights were conquered by force of arms, but survived as cultures. Native American tribes and civilizations that recognized property rights were much more likely to survive and remain intact than those that didn't (think Hopi and such), while even the savage Spanish occupation was unable to wipe out the cultures they dominated for so long.

A self-correcting problem, IMHO. When we completely fuck up the Earth, we are fucking ourselves. When we become extinct, the Earth will continue happily as ever. Maybe intelligent centipedes will dominate the planet in 10 million years from now.

Spoken like a true primative unaware @Ffnnllij$##*!. The environmental damage you are causing to @Ffnnllij$##*! is atrocious beyond imagining. Just because you are a developing planet does not excuse your crimes against sentience, non-sentience living and even common quarks. Human, you disgust me worse than the acts of Grivaloud the Liatonajikirous.

What about those massive black holes that will suck up the entire universe, caused by the LHC?

Micro black holes created by the LHC may be "massive" in that they have rest mass, but they're not "massive" in the sense of sticking around very long before evaporating into Hawking radiation. See the scientific consensus [wikipedia.org].

At our technological level, we pose no danger to anything off this planet.

Not now, no. But once we advance enough technologically and can actually move around in space with relative easy...well, mankind has shown extraordinary talent for selfishness and greed and wanton destruction of even our own planet just to please our short-term interests. If we do this to our OWN planet then what do you think we would do to something where we do not live?

I'd actually be pretty sympathetic with the aliens and wouldn't mind them annihilating the human race completely.

I think it's mostly because of the stupidity displayed by the human race, we're too stupid to survive.

We might master the atom and fire, but we're still stupid beasts when it comes down to it, as our lifestyle clearly shows. We're still driven by basic animal urges, we just apply them to different things.

In case that grain of sand was contaminated with, say, a fast-spreading, airborne Ebola variant, I'd consider sterilizing it indeed. And rather before I'd have to sterilize a whole city the thermonuclear way...

On one hand I agree, but on the other I think that's also extrapolating a bit too much of our way of thinking onto an alien species. To us, that kind of future might feel very distant and not in any way written in stone. But a species with a far longer lifespan, or one which doesn't even experience age related death anymore, might not look at things within the same timeframe. And what seems like free will and complex choices in social development to us might seem like little more than easily predictable bli

Depends on what you mean by danger. Physical threat, probably not, but what about ideas? Religions, for example, are self-replicating ideas that can spread throughout human populations. It's (barely) plausible that we may be broadcasting something that has a similar effect on non-human minds.

At our technological level, we pose no danger to anything off this planet.

It would be like saying you'll sterilize a grain of sand to protect the planet.

Such a silly scenario...

If we ever develop interstellar travel that is fast, cheap and practical, maybe then this scenario starts to have legs.

We've made huge strides in the past hundred years, going from first flight to the moon, and we could have gone to mars already if we had the financial means. When you look at the 200,000 year timeline of humans 100 years is just the last little speck, so if I was an alien race looking at man I'd be thinking "WTF they already made it to their nearest moon?! Ok we better do something, no telling where they'll be in another speck or two."

Our advance rate has improved because we are in a point where the new technology obtained by investigation ease further investigation. Since an alien race technologically superior enough that can attack us will presumibly have the same technology and better, it is not risky to think that their rate of improvement is also equal or superior.

In something like David Brin's Uplift universe, pre-sapient species (chimpanzees, dolphins, gorillas) are protected at all costs, as they represent the future species that can be developed into the galaxy's next generation of sentient life. A species like ours that has greatly depleted them - and hasn't really done much in the way of technological or social progress (from the view of a spacefaring race) with our intelligent might be considered a lost cause, and could be wiped out to give room for our plane

Here are some likely factors that will determine the nature of our first alien encounter:
1) Any civilization that has developed practical interstellar travel will also probably have the medical technology to make themselves nigh immortal.
2) Even at speeds of 10 percent the speed of light, it would take an interstellar civilization a mere 5 million years to colonize the Milky Way Galaxy.
3) Any behavioral norms the immortal interstellar beings started with first came into being by natural selection, but th

I thought that was a staple scenario in its entirety. I saw The Day the Earth Stood Still [imdb.com] (both of them [imdb.com]) where the aliens come to say "yo, we've come to save the earth. From you losers".

One twist is where the aliens think they need to save the earth from us, but really we're the good guys in a galactic conspiracy (or bureaucracy), like David Brin's Uplift trilogy [wikipedia.org].

'Childhood's End' is a book with a superb scenario, without the imagination-less superimposing of human ideas, methods and motivations onto ETs, who, by the way, absolutely must exist, and who do come here regularly.

After decades of writing, speculation, insights and research devoted to this subject, the usual suspects keep coming up with the same tired ideas and human centered dogma. There is a reason for this; they are all paid no matter what the quality of their ideas is, because none of them can be impl

What puzzless me more is that obsession with aliens being human-like enough that we can identify their reasoning as we do with people of our species. People has no imagination and things of aliens in human terms: childs (ET), mongol invaders (Independence day, savage animals (Alien), psychos (Predator)...). Really different aliens are not so "popular", because there is less you can write about them (the alien from Dark Star, or many of the aliens from Stanislaw Lem novels).

what's pollution to them? maybe they'd think were actually terraforming since human population is on the rise and will remain at high levels even if all borders were closed and all hell broke loose - as information on how to make food is spread now to every corner of the earth, even if things went bad we would have that know how and steel to make instruments out of, better than ever before.

the article takes the assumption that the human race is sinful and presents that as not just global but as an universal

"From what we've seen of the alien planet, the dominant species is working furiously to increase the temperature of the atmosphere, CO2 levels have risen sharply over the last 200-300 years, not long before we were able to pick up faint traces of unnatural radio transmissions from the area. We can only assume that they're an invading species terraforming the planet, and with no other inhabited planets in sight, we must assume their interstellar travel capabilities (and other technology) are far beyond our c

If a species has managed to conquer interstellar travel in reasonable time spans, I'm pretty sure they have developed energy sources that are powerful enough to wipe us out before we even know what hit us. A gentle nudge on a few asteroids, and BOOM. No more life above microscopic size.

Forget that. Go to the Ender books and see what happens when an alien species decides to terraform with a virus. Or look at Fallen Dragon, and Gamma Soak. But what we really should be considering is what cultural model would an alien race _have_ to be in order to achieve interstellar travel.

The only reason we haven't got colony ships and space stations is because of money, and the desire to do it. Remove money/funding from the equation, and give a suitable motivation and you can 'bootstrap' yourself like in

What is with the Ender's books? I heard of it so I read the first one. It is just like a bad high school movie (shy young boy who has a glorious fate, who is a do-gooder but kills whoever gets in his path because he is "forced to do", and who becomes a world hero by playing video games and not risking anything). I realize it is ideal for nerdsturbation and nerdgasms, but didn't think that alone was enough to suppress critical thinking of so many people.

really, the global warming scare factory blew right past hyperactive speed and went straight to plaid.

It is crap like this that makes it hard for many to believe there are is any seriousness in the global warming let alone man causing it or making it worse. I cringed while reading this article. I am not sure if its more of a creepy cringe or just offensive to real thinking

Its time to get the zealots out of the lead roles, they are no more than Bible thumping tent preachers, whats next, snakes?

I think it's unlikely, and not just because the Universe is huge and travelling at the speed of light is a paradox. (not a scientist)
Simple social observations, we have free will, our free will creates great works of art, science, invention, engineering, we think outside the box because we have unique perspectives on life. Just like all things, this comes with a downside. The downside is of course that not all of us think about art when we think outside the box, some think about murdering people and exploiting them for their resources. So to assume that an alien race where they have achieved the goals of intergalactic space travel through free thought and innovation, the idea that this alien race would think we were more evil than them because we wage wars and kill each other is laughable. Because if they have the same free will, the same free innovation and free thinking free spirited individuals as we do then they would by that logic have the same evil, the same murders and the same exploitation.

Same scenario as the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still" sans Keanu Reeves. We win, why? I don't remember but I do remember that we are on borrowed time. Surprised that Hollywood as tried to do a sequel of the Aliens coming back after 60 years and saying:

"You know what Earth? We screwed up last time. Say goodbye to all of this...and hello to oblivion."

Do you remember when the term "scientist" applied to people who did science? We used to reserve the title "scientist" for people who did repeatable experiments. People like the ones referred to in this article were called "science fiction writers" with the key word being "fiction".

The thing is, the thought experiments described in that article are actually related to the science that the scientists in question actually did. I am unaware of any repeatable experiments that have involved extraterrestials. Both of the thought experiments that are used as examples in your link (Schrodinger's Cat and Maxwell's Demon) are used to illustrate a conclusion that these scientists had come to as a result of repeatable experiments.
I would be hard pressed to come up with a repeatable experiment th

I am going to be the devils'advocate and suppose that it is just the media spin; after all one guy can be an scientific from 8 to 5 and then go to the bar and speculate about what colour ET's underwear was. As long as they did not claim that they were doing something more than "wildly speculating", it is not so grave.

Anyway, the part (media or participants) who put the enfasis in the science aspect should be feathered, to begin with.

we will have exterminated most of ourselves long before we will find find (if at all) the technical ability to get even close to harming any planet other than our own.If there are aliens and if they are intelligent they probably know that already.

So the only threat we could face is aliens who want to exterminate us for the sheer fun of doing it.

Greg Egan's "Quarantine" has a nice twist on this. By observing the universe we collapse a lot of possible quantum states dooming billions so the earth is enclosed by aliens in an opaque sphere. Like all Greg Egan novels that's just one of many plot points and it gets even weirder from there and that story becomes a sort of cyberpunk novel.

The reason NASA is facing the problems it is with the public is because of ridiculous things like this.
The idea that a civilization from another planet would consider us a threat to our galaxy is preposterous, and the article doesn't even begin to make a case for it.

I can't imagine any intelligent lifeforms being unable to see that we're never getting off this planet and will either off ourselves, or sit idly by and let a rogue chunk of rock do the job. Now, if the aliens' leader claimed there were Weapons of Mass Destruction on our planet, that's another story.

Aliens did land here to destroy us, but they were small and insect like and the bug exterminator guy killed their entire galactic fleet, thinking they were some "weirdo bug infestation". A second attempt was tried by another species, and aquatic one, but it got ate by sharks. A third one came, land based and they were bigger, but were ate by the wild life. A fourth came and the RF that we are immune to quickly burned out their brains, and they too were ate by wild life.

A mechanical race came and was destroyed by a thunderstorm, when a bolt of lightning struck their ship and it exploded. Of course there have been several small missions which end up in races being consumed by just the biological aspects of our planet. Germs, viruses, and an assortment of microbes tend to make short work of them if they don't use the proper environmental protocols.

Not to mention we are a biological weapon to 99.9999999% of the species in the known universe. Many in the galaxy speculate that the "creator" an extra dimensional entity that instilled the creation codes, was being some kind of a dickhead when he instilled the planetary creation code for this planet. Many speculate and fear that we are doomsday weapon made by said "creator", some want to destroy us, others think we have some special link with the "creator" and should just stay away at least.

Considering we breath poisoned gas, we are mostly water, which is a universal solvent that eats through many species on contact. We live near oceans of water which scare most species. We are larger than most species by far and are physically more capable. We have lived in a constant state of war with each other since before our history, hence we are really good at it and durable, some how we fight each other so hard, yet our species is over populated. Which is a terrifying aspect of us, we breed so fast compared to most species.

Most species pray that we will just kill ourselves off. Others are convinced we will achieve the technology to travel about the universe, hence over running it in a matter of eons. But it's galactic law that nobody gives us any aid, and any species that tries to cultivate us is punished. Often rich juveniles from a species will buzz Planet Earth to impress a mate or mates, only to get shot down, spotted or crash; many escape, but its still risky behavior that if caught gets severe punishments.

Mostly we are immune to solar radiation, in fact we bath in it to get a tan. Our Sun puts out enough EMP to burn up the nervous system of some delicate species before they even get near Earth. Our skin though we think it's thin in contrast to some of the beasts of the planet, is incredible to most species. It's chemical resistant, radiation resistant, and waterproof which baffles everyone. Shooting an Earthling with an alien water cannon only amuses them. They in fact stole several water cannons and reproduce them as toys under the "Super Soaker" line. An Earthling child with a water gun chills the bones of the hardiest of galactic warriors.

Lastly, what we can eat is frightening as well. What we eat and drink frightens most species away alone. Most of them would be on our dinner plate, as a delicacy. Not to mention our waste byproducts are the most foul bits of toxic waste in the universe. They have watched us poke and prod everything on our planet and try to eat it. We have even ate each other, which is a horror that most minds can't comprehend in the universe. Not to mention we skin other species and wear them as clothes and trophies.

Then some have tried to understand us, they have figured out that TV is some form of entertainment to us, not educational, not some history archive. This process drove many species insane. One species was found in some insane collective nightmare after watching Gilligan's Island episodes, they fell into some logic loop and have been catatonic as a species ever since. They have concluded that we as a species are quite insane and it's illegal to attempt to figure us out psychologically.

Jesus M. Christ, the Son of God, apparently took office in heaven sometime last century (Jehovah's Witnesses claim 1914, but other evidence points to 1934) and deported Satan from heaven. The result: world war on Earth, and your planet's next.

I agree with that concept. As a race we just tend to break things down into their natural states. Our pursuit of 'purity' is the greatest example of this, we drill and mine and our only goal is truly the isolation of materials from their counterparts. Most of this is a reflection of nature its self where something gets broken down into it's fundamental parts we are just an extension of this. We some how believe looking from the outside in that we are exempt of this but it is the furthest from the truth.